My Cool Friend

One of the absolutely best things about Stockholm is that people pass by. Everyone living in Sweden or dealing with Sweden one way or the other, sooner or later comes to Stockholm. That means that by living here you get the chance to catch up with people every now and then. Today I met a good old friend that I haven’t seen in a long time. It was soo great!!
He was very important to me when I was a teenager. Then he was the coolest person I knew. In many ways he still is. I thing you might say he is as close to having a big brother as I ever get and today he said I am pretty much the younger sister he never had.
Before we met I wondered if I would still recognise him, but then I saw him on a long distance and there was no doubt. He still looks extremely cool and like no one else in the very posh area of Stockholm where we met. As I was coming straight from the office I did not feel very cool in my office outfit, but he was cool enough for both of us. After a while and a couple of beers and a whole lot of old memories later I almost started feeling cool too. It was so good to be reminded of that although I might now seem to be a boring bureaucrat I actually used to be cool once. We were talking about all the cool rock concerts that we went to, about when we saw The Sugarcubes at Brixton Academy in London or New Model Army on Gamle Port in Gothenburg (one of the guys in the band recently called on my friend and agreed on that that was one of their best gigs ever) etc etc…
We were talking about photography and movies and although I don’t do photo the way I used to and it was a long time I last went to the cinema, it was still good to have someone to talk about these things with. One of the reasons I don’t go to rock concerts anymore is that I don’t have anyone to go with. Anyway we agreed on that the most important thing is that one is still curious and that we both are.

One funny thing that happened was when a woman who had been sitting at the table next to us, together with two other women, came up to us just before they were leaving. She said that she thought we just looked so great, “the two of you are just sooo cool, you look great, your hair, your clothes, everything, you just got The Look.!! Are you from Stockholm??”. We were very surprised about this and had a great deal of fun about it afterwards, wondering if she had been serious or ironic. Maybe she thought us being the nerds of the place. And what was this question about if we were from Stockholm?! Did she actually mean what she said and thought maybe we were from London, New York or some other cool place?? Or was it obvious to her that we were from the province?! Anyway; we had a good laugh about it and a great evening!!

Disappointment at the gym

Today I was attending a spinning class at the gym, a class where you are connected to a pulse metre and can see your result on a screen at the front. I have a pulse metre and a pulse-watch of my own and use it sometimes, but have always had a feeling that there is something fishy about it. I haven’t measured my max-pulse only used the recommended estimate. According to the recommendations one should exercise at medium intensity of 70-80% of max-pulse most of the time and over that one can only work out very short periods. My problem is that I almost always exceed that limit. It is not at all unusual that I work out long periods on over 90%.

I have asked about this but never got a good explanation and therefore I of course came up with an explanation of my own, or rather two explanations. Either it must mean that I am extremely fit; or that my real age is actually at least ten years less that what’s written in my passport…

Today’s exercise showed the same result, i.e. I work out at a very high pulse level. Afterwards the leader of the class noted that some had of us had very high levels which could mean that the level was not correctly set. Maybe the max-pulse needed to be adjusted. Then she added that the level given is really only an estimate and that some people simply have a higher max-pulse and that this is genetically motivated, it doesn’t have anything to do with how fit you are or not. I am very disappointed…